A midwestern mother and her daughter consider Suburbia. The mother requested anonymity.

The Mother:
I spent my childhood on a farm in Iowa. I moved to Des Moines as a
teenager and after I married I lived in England, went back to Iowa to student
housing, and from there to the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, where I have
remained for most of the 40 years since.

The Daughter:
I live now in Los Angeles, my brother lives in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, my other brother lives in Escondido, a major suburb of LA, and my sister lives in St. Peters (another suburb of St. Louis, near my mother's).

How did we all end up where we are?

The Mother:
In my mind it was "the place" where we could have a house of our own (no
money down VA) and be close to my husband's employer, McDonnell-Douglas
(now Boeing). We were one of millions who did this. I cannot
remember any thought of doing anything else.

The Daughter:
The suburbs, the suburbs, the suburbs...I have to think back, to my childhood, because that is where I grew up for the most part.
I recall a feeling of longing for real earth, for realness altogether.
In the suburbs all of the land is re-formed. The rocks are gone. The trees are just saplings, replanted in the "proper places," the grass is just so. Certain flowers, certain shrubs. Not just anyplace, only where people put them...I watched the television shows, Sky King, Fury, Lone Ranger, always wishing for what looked so real on TV. Ha.

The Mother:
There is much hubbub in our area regarding urban sprawl and how St.
Charles (where I live 20 miles west of St. Louis) is somewhat to blame. We
are only guilty of offering affordable housing and space.
I have never felt responsible as I would never have lived in the City of
St. Louis anyway. At the time we moved to St. Louis we were looking for
the 'Good Life'...to raise our family in our own home.

The Daughter:
My father worked on a project in New Mexico between 1963-1967. When we first drove past REAL mountains, two, maybe three hundred feet high, my brothers and sister and I were bouncing off the walls of the car with excitement. When we discovered the city limits of Alamogordo were one block north of our house, I was ecstatic. I lived in the desert. Out west! IN the desert! Yahoo!!!!!! What beautiful place. I still feel the warmth and beauty of the Tularosa basin if I sit and think. Or go back and visit.

What a coincidence (or is it?): My brother lives there now.

The Mother:
I realize there are many problems with schools, transportation, clean
air etc. but blaming surburbia is not going to fix it.

The Daughter:
I wanted to live in the city or the country but never in between. The worst of both worlds.

The banality of the suburbs is the worst I think. None of the intimacy of a real city. None of the contact with nature's own world.

I HATE dirty snow.

The Mother:
For me it is just the way it is but sometimes I realize I am burying
my head in the sand.

The Daughter:
When I was growing up I wished I could have grown up where my mother grew up, on a farm in the country. Or on a ranch or out in the middle of nowhere. Or even in New York City.